The Other HitchHiker
by OtteryStCatchpole1
Summary: On the day of the Vogon attack, Arthur wasn't the only human who escaped. This is the story of Sofia, set alongside the 1st book but not telling Arthur's story. Not much to do with original characters I'm afraidn, but hopefully there's some of the humour.


Sofia had just spilled some milk, and she was crying. She knew that it was wrong to cry about this, but she couldn't help herself. She consoled herself with the fact that the spilled milk wasn't the sole cause of her tears. It was partly the recent, tragic loss of her goldfish Flossy, who had spent the last moments of her life travelling at great speed up the tube of a vacuum cleaner. It was partly the de-commissioning of Sofia's favourite show, to which she had devoted much of her three years of adult life, and the subsequent hole in her schedule at 9'o'clock on Friday nights. And, of course, it was partly the milk. However, if Sofia had to say exactly why she was crying, she would probably have blamed the imminent destruction of her home planet by an alien race known as the Vogons. It could have been her fish, her TV show or her tragically dry Cornflakes, but mainly it was the whole Vogon thing.

Sofia sighed, and wiped her face dry. Reaching for a Jay-cloth to mop up the milk, her hand suddenly stopped. Why was she cleaning it up? The world was about to end! She could do whatever she wanted, whatever she'd always wanted. The idea slightly scared her. Ever since leaving school, she had been the sensible one of her group of friends. Revising at week-ends, not drinking, having a long-term boyfriend, all the things that her mother had raised her to do. But now that the Earth, and everything she knew, was coming to an end, her own thoughts surprised her. She didn't want to spend her last moments with her family or friends, as she had always thought she would. She wanted to _live. _Not merely exist, as she had done for 21 years, but really _live_. She ran out of her door (she had dressed, as always, before breakfast) but then stopped. She ran back inside, and a moment later re-appeared, climbing out of her loft window and onto her tiled roof.

"Goodbye!" she screamed, jumping for…well, she wasn't sure what she was jumping for. Certainly not joy. Relief, probably. She was jumping for relief.

"Goodbye! And good riddance!" she yelled to a couple of startled larks in a nearby oak. In her mind, she was screaming to the whole, wide world, but no-one was around to hear her except for the larks.

"Goodbye, and thanks for all the…"

The word "memories" didn't have time to leave her lips as her foot landed awkwardly on a roof tile, and she found herself slipping down the roof, and then down more steeply and quickly towards the ground.

"Oh great," she thought, as the ground rushed up at her. She wasn't as shocked as she'd expected herself to be in such an event. Her house was not exceptionally high, and she braced herself for the impact, which, she supposed, might sprain her ankle or giver her some bruises, whilst allowing her mind to wander. She had a vague feeling that today meant something, to someone close to her. If only she could remember what it was. She fell the last few feet through the air, saw her front lawn getting far too close, looking very pleased to meet her, when suddenly she realised it was her birthday.

She wondered why no-one had remembered her birthday, and where all her presents were for a good few seconds. It was at least a minute before she realised that she hadn't yet hit the ground. Startled, she looked around. She was hovering a few feet above her dying begonias. She was always meaning to water those. Tentatively, Sofia looked around. She wasn't touching anything. Just lying there. In mid-air. Even more cautiously, she reached out an arm, and a foot, and kicked through the air, floating gradually upwards towards her recently vacated roof. As she climbed higher and higher, she left her house, and her begonias far behind. The larks, which had been surprised enough by her impromptu rooftop shouts, both suffered coronary heart attacks as she floated past them. It was probably for the best, as it spared them the intense pain of being vaporized by a Vogon ray-gun, but they weren't to know this. As it was, the dying larks spent the final moments watching as Sofia floated up and towards the stratosphere.


End file.
